


Not a Single Hair

by Susana Rosa (SusanaR), SusanaR



Series: Desperate Hours Alternative Universe (DH AU) D version [11]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Backstory, Incest, Rape/Non-con References, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-19
Updated: 2011-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-21 13:23:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/Susana%20Rosa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mothers sometimes keep a lock of their baby's hair as a keepsake. Lovers sometimes exchange locks of hair as a token of affection.  But Feanor was never particularly fond of his half-brothers or their children. And perhaps Artanis, who was later known as Galadriel, had a very good reason for saying "no" to her uncle's request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Single Hair

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to anyone who has survived something horrible, and kept on going. Which gets to be most of us, if we live long enough.
> 
> A/N: That Artanis/Galadriel's youth contained this tragedy is a theme that will be expanded upon, or at least further explored, later in the DH AU.
> 
>  
> 
> "Even among the Eldar she (Galadriel) was accounted beautiful, and her hair was held a marvel unmatched. It was golden like the hair of her father and of her foremother Indis, but richer and more radiant, for its gold was touched by some memory of the starlike silver of her mother; and the Eldar said that the light of the Two Trees, Laurelin and Telperion, had been snared in her tresses.  
> Many thought that this saying first gave Feanor the thought of imprisoning and blending the light of the Trees that later took shape in his hands as the Silmarils. For Feanor beheld the hair of Galadriel with wonder and delight. He begged three times for a tress, but Galadriel would not give him a single hair. These two kinfolk, the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor, were unfriends forever."  
> \- From: "Unfinished Tales," Chapter IV, History Of Galadriel And Celeborn

From her earliest of memories, the child, the elfling, knew that she was less important, just because she was a she.

How could she not know? She was intelligent, perceptive. She saw how her brothers were treated. She knew how she was treated.

She was not less loved. But the future prospects, the future power, that were on offer for her and her one female cousin, were less. It mattered.

Something else happened to her during her earliest years. But that other was so awful, that she did not remember it for years upon years.

Her frustration turned outward, and was rebuffed. Ultimately, acting out was an ineffective strategy. And she had little time or patience for anything that was ineffective. Not in herself, and not in others. She rarely had to learn a lesson twice. She was proud, but that part was truth, not pride; she was just that smart.

So her frustration turned inward instead, and a window opened inside her mind, then widened, became a door.

And that was when the visions started.

No one believed her at first, that they were real. Like no one had believed her, about her grandfather preferring her brothers. Like no one had believed her, about her uncle hurting her.

Except the healer. He'd known that it was at least likely that something awful had happened to her, and at whose hands. But he told her to keep the secret. That no one would believe her.

And, to give her parents and those who loved her the benefit of the doubt, she hadn't really had the words to describe what it was that her uncle had done to her. What did a less than twelve year old elfling know of sex, of what an elleth might do with an ellon? She didn't even know the words for those parts of her own body, for the feeling of arousal itself. When she tried to show them what he had done, they scolded her, as if she'd soiled herself in public.

She did not like embarrassment. So she did not try to explain to them what had happened to her again. Instead she forgot what had happened, as much as she could. And she hated her uncle for other reasons. It wasn't hard. He hated her grandmother, whom she resembled.

For years and years, she didn't remember what the stress had been, that had created the pressure that brought her to see the visions that few other elves could, and at such an unprecedentedly tender age.

Soon enough, her family knew that she had not lied about the visions.

The visions gave her power, made her special. They gave her opportunities that other ellith didn't have.

Years passed. She created a path for herself. She protected, sponsored, championed, and mentored other ellith who wanted more than their parents had planned for them.

The best revenge is a life well-lived, and Artanis did her best to do that, for herself. And to make it possible, for others. If she took a particular interest in promoting the causes of those whom her uncle disliked, well, there were other reasons for their enmity. Besides the one that she did not remember, not then. Not on a conscious level.

But when her uncle asked her for a strand of her hair, she refused. Three times.

Other elves, and even some of her teachers' friends, scolded her for it. They told her that she was making the division between her uncle Feanor's followers and the other elves of Aman even worse, when she'd been given an opportunity to mend a fence.

Artanis could not bring herself to feel guilty about that. She didn't remember why. But on some level, she knew.

Often, ellith have reasons for their actions. Deep, grievous hurts which were done to them, with no hope for redress, which ellyn and Valar know not of.


End file.
